The lights are on but nobody’s home in the land of Google Plus

by Marketing ON 15 May 2013

It was supposed to be the next Facebook, but it seems social media users have turned their noses up at Google Plus with new reports stating the average user spent just seven minutes a day on the site for the entire month of March.

A Nielsen survey obtained by Mashable.com has found that Google Plus users were active for six minutes and 47 seconds compared to Facebook, where the average user is being active for an average of six hours and 44 minutes. A Google rep told Mashable.com the Nielsen’s figures are ‘far off’ from what the company’s internal data show. Nielsen’s figures are based on visits directly to plus.google.com in the browser, and do not factor in activity on other domains like YouTube and Gmail, which Google may factor in.

Nielsen is also reporting that 20 million unique visitors in the United States used the Google plus Android and iPhone apps which equals a 238% rise over March 2012. On desktop, Google Plus’s monthly unique views jumped 63% from the previous year to 28 million.

The figures compare to 142.1 million uniques for Facebook’s desktop site during the same time and 99 million uniques who visited Facebook via their mobile devices. Twitter had 34 million unique visitors on desktop and 29 million uniques visitors from their official mobile app.

The report also showed that 20 million unique visitors in the US used Google Plus on Android and iPhone apps; a rise of 238% in March 2012 compared to 99 million unique views for Facebook and 29 million unique views for Twitter.

On desktop, Google Plus’ monthly unique views jumped 63% to 28 million compared to 142.1 million uniques for Facebook and 34 million for Twitter.

Facebook is still sitting way up in front of both platforms with 700 million active users.

Chinese social media giant partners with Hamilton Island to promote Australia

by Marketing ON 9 May 2013

Tencent, China’s largest online community with more than 780 million active users has partnered with Hamilton Island to broadcast the Great Barrier Reef Island to the flourishing Chinese market.

It’s the first time the social network has shifted outside of China and the third largest internet company in the world after Google and Amazon. Tencent’s QQ.com is the ninth most visited website in the world so traction for Australian is immense.

Targeting China’s affluent travellers of the future, Hamilton Island’s first Chinese ambassador Chao Xian Yang will work with Hamilton Island playmakers to build a robust Tencent Weibo community and fan base for the trendy Whitsundays’ island.

Chinese supermodel Li Ya Hong, Hamilton Island ambassador Chao Xian Yang, Tencent Weibo executive Xia Yue and a competition winner will visit Hamilton Island in May to promote Hamilton Island on Tencent Weibo.

Branded the ‘Twitter of the East’, Sophie Baker, Hamilton Island’s senior communications manager, explains the strength of the social media superpower: “China probably has more social media users than Facebook has worldwide. With China’s social media market nearly at one billion users, mostly on mobile, we are honoured to be partnering with Tencent Weibo.”

Capitalising on the high-end travel market, it’s a huge win for Hamilton Island in a monetary sense as Tencent Weibo executive Ai Fang admits. “When it comes to luxury goods, unique and high-end experiences, Tencent Weibo’s hundreds of millions of users are highly engaged consumers with high spending power,” he says.

Using Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest and YouTube boomed back to the Tencent Weibo juggernaut, Hamilton Island’s social reach should increase dramatically.

Android continues to take chunks out of Apple, InMobi finds

by Marketing ON 8 May 2013

According to the latest InMobi, Australian Mobile Insights Report, Apple’s iOS smartphones continue to lose share to Android.

Between the months of January and March 2013, Apple’s smartphone share of impressions dropped 2% to 59% while Android grew 2% to 36% on the InMobi network.

The figure is impressive for the fact that the 23% margin is the nearest that Android has been to Apple before and displays a changing of the smartphone guards of sorts.

And this trend is not limited to local with other parts of the world, including New Zealand, showing Android is presently only 7.7% behind Apple.

Compounding Apple’s smartphone share loss, the iPhone also lost handset share of impressions for the first time in its history. While handset share decreased 5.4% to 45.7%, but it still held onto top spot.

Francisco Cordero, vice president and general manager of InMobi Australia and New Zealand, explains: “Android has come firing through this quarter, gaining on iOS following a great fourth quarter and Christmas sale period from Samsung which posted a record profit of AU$6.34 billion.”

The rise of the iPad has been good to Apple as it is still dominates the market, a 3% increase for the iPad, moving it to second most preferred tablet is a win despite the share loss to Android.

News isn’t great for Apple in overturning the market share with the launch of Facebook Home, the Samsung Galaxy S4 and the launch of the HTC Facebook phone piling on the heat.

“We believe that Android will maintain its momentum and close the margin between iOS even further next quarter,” says Cordero.

Everyone’s on Facebook – so why aren’t the ASX100?

by Marketing ON 7 May 2013

Half of the ASX100 use social media – but only a third are choosing the social media platform that Australians favour, Facebook.

53% of ASX100 companies are now using Twitter, 27% are using Facebook and less than a quarter of the top 100 Australian companies are using both.

According to a study by Web Profits, 11.5 million Australians are currently active on Facebook but only an estimated 2.2 million are currently active on Twitter.

However, the results suggest that large Australian companies are choosing to use less populated Twitter to ‘hide’ their social output, forgoing the opportunity to connect with customers and stakeholders in fear of having their mistakes seen online.

Source: Web Profits

“The results indicate that companies that feel pressured by their boards to embrace social media are choosing Twitter because it feels safer,” says Paul Sprokkreeff, MD of Web Profits.

“Comments on Twitter fly by so quickly, while a faux pas on Facebook often sticks there for everyone to see. Rather than formulate a strategy to turn this to their advantage, many companies are confining their engagement strategy to tweeting the odd media release or pre-spun factoid to a handful of followers.”

Source: Web Profits

It appears that the big four banks are cottoning on to the higher engagement levels of Facebook.

The Commonwealth Bank leads the pack, coming in at number one of the ASX100 for effective social media deployment, with NAB, Westpac and ANZ coming in at 6th, 7th and 8th place.

“That the big four banks have caught on indicates that even traditionally risk-shy companies know that the blend of information and customer service that social media can achieve is a powerful marketing and loyalty tool,” Sprokkreeff says.

“I think we’ll see social media grow significantly in importance to exceed that of the call centre in the next five years.”

YouTube domination: online video challenges TV for share of marketing spend

by Marketing ON 6 May 2013

After recently hitting more than one billion unique visitors every month, YouTube has upped it to six billion views per month according to the Wall Street Journal. As a result, YouTube generated roughly $4 billion in revenue in 2012, up from $2.5 billion in 2011, and it has made the online medium a major drawcard for businesses looking to reach out.

In fact, countless marketing departments are leveraging YouTube by building custom channels, hiring upcoming talent, and sponsoring YouTube ‘stars’ to assist them in reaching a new audience.

“Follow the audience,” is the message from executive chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt. The chairman informed in a recent pitch to advertisers that, “your company should pay attention to the site if any of the below stats ring true for your organisation.”

70% of YouTube traffic comes from outside the US and the site is localised in 53 countries and across 61 languages, and
in 2011, YouTube had more than one trillion views or around 140 views for every person on Earth.

And subscriptions are also key, with millions of subscriptions happening each day. Subscriptions allow you to connect with someone you’re interested in — whether it’s a friend, or the NBA — and keep up with their activity on the site.

Yet it’s the continued rise of mobile and the stats surrounding its dominance that intrigue most. With 25% of global YouTube views coming from mobile devices, that’s one billion views a day on YouTube mobile, is available on hundreds of millions of devices and traffic from mobile devices tripled in 2011, so the evidence is clear.

It has been reported that the majority of the online video traffic is for entertainment, mostly an opportunity for advertising to consumers, but there still “remains a window for businesses to create original content themselves and share it,” says Schmidt.

Affinity trumps intent: why the ‘database of affinity’ will rule brand marketing

by Marketing ON 23 April 2013

As the ‘like’ economy rises thanks to social networking sites such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and internet gate-keepers such as Google, digital marketers are increasingly able to tap into what can only be described as a goldmine of consumer affiliations, what they likes, what they share and how they feel.

The sheer volume of data out there, though, is becoming quite overwhelming, but the maturation of online advertising, and in particular brand advertising, hinges on the effective monitoring of social behaviours, believes research agency Forrester. Such behaviours reveal long-term emotional drivers, as opposed to search behaviour, which reveals shorter-term, rational clues.

Forrester has dubbed this social, emotional data the ‘database of affinity.’ With all of this information comes the incredible power of accurate brand advertising, but actually wading through the dense and what now appears to be endless amounts of data will be the greatest challenge.

A new report by Forrester, ‘How to Exploit the Database of Affinity’, defines affinity as people’s preferences for – or desire to connect with – other people, products or things. The report also defines the difference between the database of affinity and the database of intentions. The database of infinity is usually observed by social sites, the data is usually emotional and can last for years and helps brand advertisers. Whereas the database of intentions is observed by search engines, the data is rational and it only lasts for days or at most, months and best helps direct marketers.

Forrester says vendors hoping to serve up this database to marketers will need to offer a collection of affinity data from across the social world as well as the analysis tools and ad formats that will allow marketers to turn this affinity data into dollars.

Author of the report, Nate Elliot, says big players like Facebook and Google continue to move aggressively to crack the value of this database, but who will actually win the battle is still unclear.

“While it’s Facebook’s birthright to win the race for monetising the database of affinity – after all it practically owns the trademark on ‘liking’ something – ultimately it will be Google that reaches the finish line first,” Elliot writes in the report.

The research also asserts that Google is currently beating Facebook in building and analysing this database because of the success of Gmail and some of the review sites it owns. As a result, Facebook will continue to wrestle with privacy challenges while Google will use its affinity data to power engaging ads in many media.

Researcher Forrester interviewed 10 vendor companies, including Epsilon, Facebook, Foursquare, Google, I-Behavior, Twitter, and Yelp while compiling the report.

The report details four stages of affinity marketing that will happen over the next five or more years.

The first stage has come and gone, running from 2010 -2012, where we saw isolated data sets, simple data analysis and low-impact online ads. The next stage, which is happening now, is ‘big affinity’, where we are seeing broader data sets, and continuing with simple data analysis and medium-impact online ads.

Over the next few years we can expect ‘smart affinity’, the stage in which the data will be comprehensive, with high impact online ads and dynamic data analysis. The final stage – where the report predicts that the database of affinity will reach its peak influence – will be from 2018 and has been named the ‘ubiquitous affinity’ stage. This stage will comprise comprehensive data, dynamic data analysis and a linking to offline ads. This stage will also see many advertisers return to television as their main advertising platform, but the ads will be decided by the affinities that have been declared in social media as TVs meld with the internet.

Facebook Home: a mobile marketer’s dream?

by Simon van Wyk ON 19 April 2013

According to IDC, mobile publishers such as Facebook, Pandora, and Twitter are fast taking over the mobile display advertising market in the United States. Overall mobile ad spending in the US increased by 88% in 2012 to $4.5 billion, as marketers spend an increasing portion of their digital ad budgets on mobile. The share of overall spending allocated for smartphones and tablets reached 11% last year, up from 7% in 2011.

With increased mobile ad budgets up for grabs the timing of the launch of the new Facebook Home is perfect. Indeed, Robin Grant, the global managing director of We Are Social, thinks that Facebook Home could very be the holy grail of mobile advertising. He told AdWeek, “Aside from mobile operators, no other company is able to keep track of a consumer’s location at all times – which, privacy settings permitting, Facebook could now do with Home.”

At the launch event Mark Zuckerberg commented, “We’re not building a phone, and we’re not building an operating system… A great phone might sell 10 or 20 million units, our user base is at about a billion. Even if we made a great phone, we’d only be serving one or 2% of our base.”

Facebook Home reinvents the start screen on Google Android-based smartphones to display a Facebook Cover Feed that brings you the latest status updates from your closest Facebook friends and provides a messaging app called ‘Chat Heads’ up front.

So while it’s not the Facebook phone per se, it’s just as good as, if not better. This strategy allows Facebook to confidently enter the mobile market by effectively hijacking proven hardware. It’s a smart way for Facebook to instantly build a strong mobile presence without the risk involved in developing its own hardware or operating system. If successful, Facebook Home will draw more users and encourage them to be more active on the social network. Every time you glance at your phone, you’ll be looking at your Facebook page and giving Facebook more opportunities to collect information about you than ever before.

And it’s this data that is really exciting for marketers. It’s the longed awaited nirvana of targeted mobile advertising and a mechanism to deliver location relevant and timely commercial messages to consumers. While it’s true that Mark Zuckerberg has said very little to date about the advertising potential of this new user experience, it is after all the whole point of the exercise. Facebook makes its money on ads, not on tools and features. By displaying ads in the Cover Feed, Facebook can give marketers the ability to push targeted commercial messages at users, any time, any place.

Putting the social network up front and centre on as many mobile devices as possible, and convincing more people to spend more time with Facebook on mobile devices, Facebook can serve ads to mobile users and fast track its ability to generate substantial mobile advertising revenue.

That said, this nirvana for marketers and the ability to deliver targeted ads to people carrying smartphones could very well turn out to be purgatory for Facebook users. Perhaps it’s just me, but I’m not sure everyone on the planet wants the added distractions of a steady stream of their Facebook stuff (good, bad and ugly) up front and centre on their mobile devices.

While Facebook diehards are sure to welcome the novelty of Facebook Home even if it does restrict their overall mobile experience, I can’t see the prospect of ads overtaking their home screens being so warmly welcomed.

Even so, eMarketer is predicting that Facebook will reap $965 million in US mobile ad revenue in 2013, which is about 2.5 times the $391 million it made in 2012.

Clark Fredricksen, vice president at eMarketer says that there are clear reasons why a deeper integration with mobile operating systems and handsets makes sense for Facebook. “At the end of the day, the more deeply Facebook can engage consumers, no matter what device or operating system or handset,” the better.

The Facebook Home super app launched for select Android smartphones (4.0 and up) on 12 April in the US as a download from the Google play store. Looking at the initial reviews, Facebook Home is currently rating at 2.4 stars.

The new HTC First is shipping with the super app pre-installed.

Year-old Vevo challenging for primetime viewing share

by Marketing ON 17 April 2013

It has only been a year since video streaming network Vevo launched in Australia, but already the network is reporting that its reach is now 23% bigger than the audience of all the catch-up TV properties combined.

Last month Vevo delivered 51 million streams, making it the third-most-used video streaming network behind YouTube and Facebook.

According to Nielsen research data, 38% of viewers are using Vevo during prime time with the most popular age demographic to use the site the 35-plus group (35%). 33% of users were aged 18 to 24 years, 21% 25 to 34 and 9% of 12 to 17 years old.

On average, consumers are reportedly watching 15 videos and spending 60 minutes on the site each month. Ads shown around Vevo content are also experiencing an average of 90% completion rates versus the industry average of 70%.

Vevo senior VP international, Nic Jones, says branded entertainment opportunities are helping advertisers better engage: “Global trends are now clear – multi-screen viewing is the norm and premium online video is now an essential part of any integrated screen advertising campaign,”he says.

Advertisers seem to be catching on, with 44% of advertisers returning for multiple campaigns inside the first twelve months and over 100 brands from a broad range of sectors advertising with the site.

The CEO of MCM Media, the owner of Vevo, Simon Joyce says if marketers are not integrating ad strategy across multiple screens, they’re going to fall behind, “With TV now the least likely screen to capture undivided attention, agencies and advertisers should be embracing online video advertising.”

Brands furious at ads being displayed on vulgar Facebook pages

by Marketing ON 16 April 2013

Companies are furious that their ads are being displayed on highly offensive Facebook pages, The Times has reported.

Vodafone, Dove, Amazon and even a homeless charity have had their advertisements displayed on pages called, ‘RAPING!’, ‘Drop kicking sluts in the teeth,’ and ‘This is why Indian girls get raped.’

Apparently more than 4400 people listed ‘RAPING!’ as an ‘interest’ on Facebook.

The Times reports that Facebook were alerted by the companies and has removed the offensive pages. Many of the advertisers were alerted to the issue by founder of the Everyday Sexist Project, Laura Bates, a foundation that highlights sexual assault and abuse against women.

“If advertising on Facebook means your ad could appear on hundreds of rape pages, advertisers should consider that very carefully indeed,” Bates told The Times.

Facebook is also being criticised for being too slow in removing offensive and inappropriate content.

Homeless charity, Shelter who’s advertisement was shown on the ‘RAPING!’ page tweeted that they were contacting Facebook to see if there was a way to stop their ads being displayed.

Both Dove and Vodafone have also been in contact with Facebook over the pages.

Facebook told The Times, that adverts on the site are targeted towards individual users, not towards individual pages, and that the site aimed to act quickly to remove offensive material they deemed to be ‘genuinely or directly harmful’.

Currently, advertising on Facebook is directed at individuals, not particular pages. Facebook made $1.33 billion from advertising revenue in the last quarter.

You’re doing it wrong! Businesses not meeting customers on their own turf online

by Marketing ON 9 April 2013

Businesses are using social media, but consumers don’t seem to be taking much notice, a new study by customer experience strategy, design and research company Fifth Quadrant has found, with businesses blamed for not being where the customer is.

The report titled ‘Emerging Consumer Channels: Social Media, Web Chat and Smartphone Apps’ has found that more than two-thirds of businesses were using some form of social media to communicate with customers, but only one third of those customers using the channel returned over the past three months.

The issue seems to lie in which sites are popular with consumers versus which sites businesses are predominantly using, suggests the report.

Facebook was found to be the most popular social media site with Australian consumers followed by online forums and communities and YouTube.

Twitter, LinkedIn and blogs were found to be the least popular sites for customer engagement, with more than seven in ten consumers stating they ‘rarely’ or ‘never’ turn to them for customer service purposes.

However, Twitter was the leading network of choice among businesses, being used by more than three-quarters of organisations. Company blogs, websites and online communities were the second most used category of social media, with Facebook being third on the list.

Generation Y is the highest user of social media in general and customer engagement, and made up 46% of all social media customer service queries within the last three months. Generation X made 39% of customer related queries, while Baby Boomers made up 29% and the Silent Generation (those born between1925 and 1942) contributed to 16% of all customer related queries online.

Concerns over security and a lack of personal interaction were the reasons cited as being the main cause for a lack of consumer participation on social media.

The study also found, not surprising to Marketing mag, that the responsibility for managing the network sits with the marketing and insights team.

Also highlighted by the report were businesses concerned with a lack of resources and the ability to keep up with the social media engagement. Head of research at Fifth Quadrant, Chris Kirby, says, “Simply creating a new service channel then standing back and waiting for the customers to come won’t work. If organisations want to offer customer service through social media, they need to go to the networks that their customers use. They also need to treat social networks as they would any other communications channel. This means developing realistic long term resourcing plans.”